- Hey, it's Ken Burns with another Unum Chat.
Today is incredibly, incredibly special.
I've had the privilege to work on many films about wars in our country, and so from the Civil War to World War ii, to the Vietnam War, we're now working on the American Revolution.
And war brings out some pretty important things, and I, as a result, get a lot of mail from servicemen.
And many of them say the same thing to me, that there's nothing more important than being a witness to history.
That those people who participate, the foot soldiers that participate in this moments that are happening, that we tend to remember only the generals or the presidents who made the decisions, or the enemy or whatever it is, that it's the people that are in the trenches that are the witness to history.
And we always say, boy, I'd like to be a fly on the wall when.
My guest today is that person, that person who has been a witness to history, and that's Cassidy Hutchinson, who has an amazing new book about her time in growing up, her rise as an assistant in government, and then her time in the White House in the last days of the Trump administration through, of course, January 6th and the end of it.
And we know her as the star witness of the house's investigation into January 6th, 2021, the star witness in a way that many of us who were avid followers, as I was a college student, studying every person who testified, a kind of combination to me of both John Dean and Alexander Butterfield, who is her hero.
And so I wanted to welcome you, Cassidy, today, we're so thrilled to have you, nothing is more important than being a witness to history.
- Well, thank you so much for the kind introduction, Ken, and I'm very excited to be here with you today.
- Yeah, well, I've read every word of your book, and early in your acknowledgements you wrote something that resonated with me, and also it connects, I believe, to what we're trying to do with Unum to explore the intersection of history and current events, and you wrote, "In the fabric of our nation's history, there is a body of guardians who protect the sanctity of our republic."
Can you talk about briefly what that means?
And also given all that you've been through and experienced, are there still guardians?
Do you still feel that we are protected in a way, not just by the ghosts of our founders?
I'm working on the American Revolution, I feel like I'm in conversation with George Washington and Thomas Payne, and Thomas Jefferson almost daily.
But tell me about the guardians.
- If only we still had the privilege of having those leaders.
Yes, so in the acknowledgement section, I list off a few people and entities that I felt that resonated with me and my journey through working at the White House, and through testifying, I list off several members of Congress, Liz Cheney as one of them, and several other members on the January 6th committee, the Capitol Police, my attorneys.
That was the group for me that resonated, that protected not only the sanctity of our public, but also protected the sanctity of the January 6th investigation, and just who I interacted with personally.
But I think, in this era right now, it is, at least in my view, it can be easy at times to get jaded or to get discouraged.
But what has been really encouraging for me is that in a way I do still feel that we are protected and there are still a body of guardians that protect us, and some of those are metaphorical.
But I really do have a lot of, and very deep belief in our founding documents, I think that our founding documents are essential to our nation, I think that our founding documents saved us on January 6th.
But the only reason at the end of the day that we prevailed through January 6th was because there were good people in government that upheld those founding documents.
And I think that right now is the danger that we're teetering on, we need good, strong legislators in Congress, especially through this next election, to ensure that the scales aren't tipped in favor of a candidate who is trying to steal the election.
We need people that are in government that continue to uphold our principles and our ideals.
There are a lot of people who do continue to protect our republic, including the United States military law enforcement bodies across this nation, but it really is our founding principles that keeps us afloat and keeps us as a constitutional republic, and we need to be able to sustain our democratic institutions.
And the only way we can do that is if we continue to elect people who are responsible.
- Yeah, well said, and from your lips to God's ears, because Liz and Adam are no longer in government, have been voted out by their own party for being too supportive - truth telling.
of those values that you talk about.
You mentioned, towards the end of the book, you talk about getting right with history, and I think all of us are so impressed with the courage it took, because many of the people, many of the powerful men in most cases, but also women around you, did not take a principled stand.
And so your willingness to speak out is beyond heroic, I think for our times, as challenging as the world is today, I'm sure you see hope in the willingness to stand up, and I'm sure you've been encouraged by your actions, as lonely as it was, and you describe, and it's very powerful how lonely it is to be sequestered in another town or in a hotel waiting to sort of have your moment on the stage, and then now, as you have done so beautifully, continue to command that moment.
You're surrounded by very powerful people who did not do that, and still to this day have not done the heroic and the courageous act that you did, and so I'm just wondering, can you talk about getting right with history, but also a sense of where you place this in the great crises in American history where we are now?
- On January 6th and in the few days leading up to January 6th, when I started to at least grasp the severity of what could happen on the 6th, I knew that it was wrong, and on the 6th and on January 7th, I was very adamant and outspoken with my colleagues in the administration that January 6th was our fault, the administration's fault.
I did have blind spots, which I'll get to in the latter half to answer your question, but I always wanted the truth to be known, but there is this sense of loyalty within the Trump administration and amongst my former colleagues that you aren't to break the code of silence.
There were a lot of moments during my tenure in the administration where I felt that I was disillusioned and I felt that I was becoming disconnected from my own value system, but I was able to sort of shove those under the carpet.
After January 6th, that became much more difficult.
Long story short, I was in a position where I hadn't, in my view, been fully forthcoming with the January 6th committee, and I felt that it was my duty to be fully forthcoming, especially because there were people above me and lateral to me that I knew weren't being forthcoming to the committee.
I came forward with more information and to be fully forthcoming, because I wanted to honor the oath that I swore, so as flattering and as kind as it is for you to say that I was brave and what I did was heroic, I wish it wasn't viewed that way in a lot of ways, because we are an exceptional nation, because America is exceptional, but part of what makes us historically exceptional is when we have been able to publicly acknowledge where our flaws are and work to continue to better those.
And I think right now we're in this really dangerous period where we have a strong political party with tens of millions of American people who believe in this philosophy that has been built off this populous movement and Donald Trump's movement, where we're living in this era of disinformation and lies are being proliferated, so the truth isn't being told.
So not only did I want to honor the oath that I swore and that I felt so close to when I first entered public service, it was a duty that I owed my nation, and it was an extension of my public service that I owed the country from when I worked in the administration, and in a way, I view what I'm doing now also as a continuation of that public service, because if we were living in an era where people were telling the truth, our voices wouldn't be so skinned, it wouldn't have to just boil down to people like myself.
And I'm not comparing with, there still are American giants, Liz Cheney is extremely courageous, Adam Kinzinger.
We look at people like Jamie Raskin, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney, people who we don't need to look down partisan lines to find that there are still good people in our government that are setting examples for future generations, and if I can emulate even a fraction of what they are and how they're fighting courageously like our founders would've expected our legislators to, I would hope that I do find my place on the right side of history, but I don't think I've earned that yet.
I think that we constantly need to be working towards that, and I think that history will be the judge of that.
- Yeah, it's a process and we are in pursuit of happiness, we're looking to make a more perfect union.
So this is all about process.
We're a nation in the process of becoming.
You've earned your stripes, the thing that's so striking to me is you are very, very young, and at a very young age, you were in an extraordinary position of power.
Is this just luck or what is it in your DNA, what was baked into your growing up that permitted you by your early twenties to be engaged at the highest level of government and be indispensable to the two highest offices in the land, the president and the chief of staff, I would say?
Can you just talk about just your biography?
Just help me understand how we were so lucky to have a Cassidy Hutchinson at this moment.
- Thank you for that.
I actually have spent some time deliberating this, and I think it's a combination of luck and hard work.
We are a nation, I don't mean to sound hokey right now, but we are a nation that's built off this premise of being able to achieve the American dream.
And I grew up in a working class family.
My parents divorced when I was approximately 10 years old.
My father, I talk a lot about our relationship in the book, but we have a strained relationship now, but one thing I will always say about him, take it to my grave, but he was the hardest worker that I have ever met and seen in my life.
But in saying that, he also was fairly hostile towards the government, I was raised in an environment where we weren't to be friendly to the government, the government was out to get us.
And I remember from a pretty young age not agreeing with that.
And I always loved school, and so I guess from a young age, for me, I had this desire to go into public service, and I wanted to be in school, so it was sort of my education was my ticket out, the education was my ticket to a different, and in my view, better life, and that's what my parents wanted for me as well.
All of that said, I was the first person in my family to go to college, I went to Christopher Newport University in Southern Virginia, and I was really fortunate to land a few congressional internships that eventually led me to the White House.
So I boiled back down to when you said, is it luck or what was it?
The summer I first applied to a congressional internship, I applied to every single Republican office, and I was fortunate enough to land an internship, and then majority with Steve Scalise office in 2017.
And I told Scalise this back when I was working at the White House, and I believe it to this day that it was really that internship that changed the trajectory of my life.
And because I was working on the whip team, I was set up in a position where I had a very forward facing internship with members of Congress and with the administration, so I was able to curate those relationships, which then propelled me to be able to take my first job, official job at the White House, which was in the Office of Legislative Affairs.
So all of this said, it was luck, it was hard work, it was, I used to say being in the right place at the right time, that may be up for debate in some people's view.
But when I think about this next election and when I think about just the government overall, our government truly does rely on people who are civic-minded to uphold its principles.
And one of my biggest fears going into this next election cycle, right now on December 13th, 2023, there is not officially a nominee for the Republican Party or for the Democratic Party, at this time, it does also though look like it's going to be Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
What strikes fear into me about the potential for a second Trump term amongst other things, is that there likely will not be civic-minded people working in government for him.
And we can discuss that further too, if you would like, but we need to have people that are willing to speak the truth and that are willing to uphold our principles and our ideals.
- You speak so well about something that's out of our lives, nobody has taught civics anymore, very few people who taught history, very few people understand what you're saying is that in some ways the highest office in the land is citizenship.
That is to say, when Jefferson wrote in the declaration, he said, "All experience has shown that mankind are disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable."
He's meaning that the whole history of the world up until this point has been under authoritarian rule, and it's been very easy for human beings to accept that, the trains run on time, you get rid of your enemies, you make a them of the people who should be an us.
And so all of those things happen, but a citizen is different than a subject, a citizen is not a superstitious and uneducated peasant, a citizen is actually engaged in the role of government.
And so to me, I feel like this is the greatest crisis we've ever been through, having documented the Civil War, and the Depression, and World War ii, because those guardrails are off.
And so I just wanted to walk you through a few things, and you can agree or disagree with what I just said.
But you wrote about the pandemic, and you said that Trump, in your mind, was uniquely unsuited to handle the pandemic, because he lacked, you said empathy.
Can you talk a little bit about, I mean, you're beginning to get, it seems to me a series from reading your book, a series of uh-oh's.
And I'm sure you saw other uh-oh's before that, but can you talk just briefly about the pandemic and his response.
- Once we became more aware in the administration that the pandemic was not going to be common cold and we were becoming more aware of the severity of what we were facing, it was pretty well known within the administration that Donald Trump is uniquely unsuited to handle that.
It wasn't lost on his staff that he isn't a very empathetic person, he would want to come out as the strong man, and in many of my colleagues' views, including my own, a big part of leadership in that moment was being able to empathize with the American people and was being able to actually emulate how they should be feeling, not washing over something or shoving it under the carpet, like Donald Trump is so well known to do.
But in those moments too, there were people that served the administration, I will point out Secretary Alex Azar of the Health and Human Services and many of his staff, that were able to congregate and help guide us through that moment and help talk sense into Donald Trump.
Should it have been that way?
Absolutely not, it should have been the leader of the free world, Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States that was giving his orders to his cabinet secretaries, it shouldn't have had to be vice versa.
But my perspective on that has shifted, and I still am very grateful that we had people like Alex Azar to help lead us through that moment in time.
But my perspective also has grown and matured and shifted in a sense of the type of leadership that Donald Trump lacked, and those were the blind spots that I also had in the administration too.
And I have been very open about this in the book and in subsequent interviews, but I did have many blind spots, and at the time, I did feel that he was serving the American people, and I thought that he was serving the American people well, and that's why I wanted to work for him.
The first time that my family or my parents ever voted was in the 2016 presidential election, that was the first presidential election that I was qualified to vote in, and I did vote for Donald Trump.
I saw people like my parents who I view as good, hardworking American people, who for the first time in their lives actually felt represented by somebody, and I wanted to be a part of that, I wanted to help continue representing the people that I know and love, and that in my view are also the spine of America in many ways.
And that's where the disillusionment also began, though, because when I began to work there, I saw that he wasn't really representing those people, and I think part of my big call to action right now, and you prefaced this question beautifully, was the American people, and citizenship is the highest public service that one can do.
But people can only serve their country in the capacity that they know how to serve their country, and by the leadership that they are shown to emulate, and by the principles that they're told to hold dear.
And right now, as you said, Donald Trump is not upholding those principles, and there are many people around him, and arguably, not even arguably, the entire base of the Republican Party has been completely deconstructed in his image, and that's what's really, really dangerous, because we're not necessarily built to be a two party system, but we're built to be able to sustain under a two party system.
And I truly believe that we do need two strong political parties in order to continue bettering America and to continue producing good legislation that improves the lives of all of us and it improves the lives of people around the world.
And I think right now we're teetering on the edge of entering that authoritarian role that our founders warned us about, and we are just an experiment, and that's what people really need to understand about this period.
- They were not looking back just at the tyranny that they'd escaped from, they were also looking back as they were designing this machine, as they said, that would go of itself, the constitution, the country.
Very worried about exactly what's happening, that a democon would come along and incite citizens to abandon Republican government.
And that's what we're seeing, and what we have to do and what's so tragic, I think in your case, is that your parents felt represented by somebody who turns out to have not cared a wit for them, and with regard to the pandemic, there are hundreds of thousands of Americans like your parents who aren't around because of the insensitivity or the politicizing of that, which leads to my next question, which is, you begin to notice with your boss, Mark Meadows, that what you hope for the ideal of government is, as George Will said to me in a film, that politics is about the half loaf, you don't get all that you want, it's about compromise and bipartisanship.
And you were seeing that there was a take no prisoners kind of thing, and you get into the White House and the same thing is happening, stuff is proposed with no chances of doing it, it just becomes performative.
And can you talk a little bit about that and sort of this, suddenly compromise is a dirty word, which is the central word and success of our republic, and you're there, you're watching this happen.
- Yeah, I think my experiences working in Congress and in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs really was formative to my belief and being able to sustain, at least a fragment of who I was prior to entering the administration.
And I was very fortunate when I worked in legislative affairs that my superiors or my bosses had worked in previous presidential administrations, the George W. Bush administration, and the George H.W.
Bush administration.
So I had good role models to look towards in those moments and how they exercised in their roles during those administrations.
So I did have this very keen sense of how we should operate in a bipartisan fashion, and how that is when progress is actually made.
And at the time we were in a divided government, the House was controlled by Democrats in the last two years of the administration.
So when I worked in legislative affairs, I was a very forward facing staffer, and I was able to build relationships with members on both sides of the aisle in the House.
So when Mark Meadows was named as the president's fourth and eventually final Chief of Staff in March of 2020, and he asked me to come work for him, Mark at the time was known as a partisan, big partisan player, he was the founder of the Freedom Caucus, and it wasn't necessarily an easy decision for me to make.
I respected Mark and I respected his tenure in Congress, but I also knew that he was a lot further to the right than I personally was, which wasn't necessarily an issue, but I wanted Mark to come in and be the leader that the administration needed at that time.
We also have to think back to that moment too, the former president had just been acquitted of the impeachment charges in the Senate for entering the global pandemic, this is several months before there's the summer of civil unrest after George Floyd's murder.
So there's this moment in American history that I saw for Mark to emerge as the leader that we needed and the leader that the former president needed, and that's why I ended up taking the job with him.
And I was very clear with Mark that I wanted to take the job because I wanted to be the neutral voice that I felt that he would need in that role, and for the most part, I think that he respected those wishes of mine, but I've also very quickly learned how the showmanship was very important to Donald Trump once I moved over to the chief of staff's office and how strength was viewed as the dominance and desired trait and not cutting deals or working with members of Congress on the other side of the aisle to truly represent the interest and needs of the American people.
And that also speaks to the lack of leadership that Donald Trump exhibited in those moments.
We did prevail through the pandemic, and Joe Biden's leadership in 2021 really helped aid that and their distribution of the vaccinations, but when I think about how we need to operate in a bipartisan fashion, especially right now, we can't be looking at these issues, in my view, as Democratic issues or Republican Party issues, right now we're facing a constitutional crisis.
And it shouldn't have to be viewed as something, the January 6th committee should not be viewed as something that is either partisan or bipartisan, they were a body of elected officials that happened to be on both sides of the aisle that we're fighting to preserve and protect our constitution.
So I think when we are looking at this next election cycle, we need to continue electing responsible people to office, regardless if they're Republicans or Democrats, because we need to be able to look past all those issues, because our partisan issues only matter if our constitution remains intact.
- That's a beautiful answer, Cassidy, thank you.
You talk about little crumbs that are sort of suggesting that something's going wrong, Mark Meadows asked whether you take a bullet for the president, and you're people are ignoring the President's behavior, the lawyers are kind of crazy, erratic, I think you call them.
When did it all come together for you?
And did you consider speaking out sooner or did you feel like your commitment to your job and to your bosses, now almost really two bosses, 'cause you're so close to both Mark and the president, tell me about the urged inside, that feeling like you're going against everything that was you?
- Yeah, there's a few key moments in that answer, Ken, and I think the first moment really, unfortunately, I wish that I had the hindsight that I do now, but I think the first moments that I realized how dangerous what we had done actually was, was on January 6th, and on January 7th, and every day afterwards.
January 6th and 7th and the days afterwards though, especially the first few months after the end of the administration, I unfortunately still felt that split loyalty.
I was still sort of tangentially involved in Trump world, I was working to distance myself and separate myself, but I also had occupied a position in very close proximity to power.
So it was something I was trying to gradually distance myself from.
So I sort of felt like there were two versions of myself for a really long time after January 6th.
And again, I don't say this with any form of flattery, I'm not proud of this, I wish that I had spoken out sooner, I never imagined it would get to the point where I would be speaking in front of the entire nation.
And I'm very fortunate for that opportunity and I'm glad that I did, but I wish it hadn't come to a head like that.
But I will say, I think the first moment that the magnitude of everything really came together for me was when I had split with my prior legal counsel and retained my own independent legal counsel.
And it was in the first few days of working with my new legal counsel, Jody Hunt, and Bill Jordan, Alston & Bird, who have been phenomenal in my life.
- And you dedicate the book to them, which is- - It is, and there's nobody else that would deserve, I feel they deserve all the credit in the world for all of this in many ways, because I wouldn't be here with you today if it hadn't been for their stewardship through this period for me.
But I remember the first few days, that was the first time in years that I've really, that I had actually made the split with Trump world, and it was very clear I had made the split with Trump world.
So not only were the pieces of the puzzle coming together for me about the timeline and how things actually progressed, which I had been acutely aware of, but not necessarily the planning aspects of it.
So the story of January 6th and the election denial really started coming together for me, but also how warped my mind had become in my first few conversations with them.
And what I mean by that is how I knew how far gone I was from the public servant that I had wanted to become when I entered public service in 2017, but I wasn't fully aware of how warped Trump world had made my mind.
And it was when I started to change my thinking patterns, and that's still happening, but a lot of that also continued to happen after I testified.
That was essential for me and for my own personal growth and how I view the moment that we're facing as a nation, but also how I view the constitutional crisis that we faced on January 6th.
So I wish I could say that I had this burning desire like Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger to be the leader that we needed in those moments, but I'm really fortunate and glad that as a nation we had people like that, because if it also wasn't for their leadership and their example that they showed, I don't know if I would've had the courage to come forward.
- There's a really poignant moment to me, Cassidy, when your mom, on the evening of January 6th says, "This isn't you, you can't fix him."
Even your family are beginning to see that there's a war going on inside you about what to do, and the power is probably an aphrodisiac, but it's also your commitment in a genuine way, it's so clear, even in our conversation, certainly comes through in your book, which is that you want to do good, you wanna fix it, you're in a proximity to being able to do things.
Can you talk about that moment with your mom?
It's so poignant to me.
- Yeah, at the time, I was not happy with her pointing that out, but looking back, she had the hindsight in many ways that I didn't have in those moments.
I viewed my role working for the chief of staff and the president, the former president, as the people in power are only as useful or only as powerful as the people who serve them.
Even on January 6th, as distressed that I was and as complicit that I felt in the events that raveled that day, I still felt a commitment to the administration, to the American people, and honestly, to Donald Trump and to the American people to continue trying to right our wrongs, and to continue trying to better our history, and to correct what we had so badly damaged.
I had previously committed to move to Mar-a-Lago with the former president, and there were a few moments after January 6th where I really didn't want to go to Mar-a-Lago anymore, and I knew that it wasn't really the place that I should be, but I also still felt that Donald Trump was going to have a stronghold on the Republican Party.
And I was really concerned that people like Mike Flynn, and Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani were going to follow him to Mar-a-Lago and continue to be destructive forces in his life, and thus the lives of the American people.
So I wanted to be a sound and decent voice and mind surrounding him, and I was at the time somewhat naively hoping that I could make that difference.
And what my mother was able to see that I wasn't able to see is that that's not who Donald Trump is, he is going to listen to the yes and he's going to listen to the sycophants that are surrounding him, which is exactly what our founders were concerned about.
And that's what we need to continue to work to combat.
- You talk about Alexander Butterfield and the friendship you developed with him, but his example, you needed to sort of find an example in history, can you talk about that connection and do you see other things beyond him, other people who have taken principled stands in all of this that you admire in American history?
Obviously you keep going back to the founders, which I'm immersed in now, and so I'm very interested, these are deeply flawed human beings, some of them are slave owners in a country, the guy who writes All Men are Created Equal owns hundreds of human beings and doesn't see fit in his lifetime to free any of them, and so we're always not dealing with perfect people.
But what's so interesting is the affinity you developed with Alexander Butterfield, I remember the moment I was watching it live when he said yes, and we went, whoa, tapes.
Can you talk about that, but also other moments of the people that might emerge from history who've taken a kind of courageous stand?
- Yeah, so Alex Butterfield has been an extremely formative figure in my life for many reasons, I have the book over here, but that was a moment for me where I had completed a few interviews with the committee where I hadn't been fully forthcoming.
And I reached this moment where I knew that I had a small window of time to correct what I had felt that I had made mistakes on, and that I had a very misplaced sense of loyalty.
But in that moment, for as strong as I felt that I needed to correct my wrongs and I needed to be more fully forthcoming, I was still involved in Trump world and I didn't really have anybody else on the outside world to turn to.
So I was frantically driving to New Jersey one night, and I was just thinking I knew about Watergate, I knew about John Dean especially, who also is a very courageous American and did do the right thing, but I knew that I wasn't the White House Council, I didn't think that I had anything nearly as damning that John Dean had, I felt more that what I had seen and witnessed was wrong and the American people had a right to know about it.
That's when I came across, I started Googling, though, other figures in Watergate, 'cause I was thinking there had to be somebody who occupied a similar position to me that probably was deposed, that's when I found Alex Butterfield's name.
And I found that he never wrote his own book, which I was like, that's perfect, I don't want to write my own book at the moment.
I wanted to slip through this, there are no pictures of me online, I didn't have active social media, so I really valued and cherished my privacy.
So I saw a lot initially in Alex Butterfield that I admired, but I did see that he worked on a book with Bob Woodward called The Loss of the President's Men.
So I ordered two copies of it, and it was delivered the next night, and I read through it three times in that night.
And there were so many aspects of Alex Butterfield that I felt that I could personally relate to, his vision of public service, how he viewed his job in his tenure in the administration, how he viewed it working for Richard Nixon and for HR Haldeman.
But what struck me deeply about Alex Butterfield was that when he was asked to testify before the Watergate Committee, it was never a question about whether he would reveal the truth.
And for me, that was just such a poignant moment, because that's who I wanted to be, I wanted to be that public servant who it was never a question whether to uphold your oath of office, and it was never a question of whether to share what you know, because that's what you owe the American people, that's the job that you took and that's the duty that you swore to protect.
So as much as it shouldn't have been this really moving and monumental moment in my life, it was, because we also were living through this era where people weren't being forthcoming and telling the truth and honoring their oath.
So, I mean, that book sort of became my Bible, I remember my first day at Alston & Bird, one of my lawyers looked at my purse and asked what it was, and I was like, "Oh, this is," in my mind, "like this is the book that brought me to you all."
So that book helped guide me to side of history that I hope that I am on now and hope to continue to achieve.
In terms of the other courageous Americans that have taken a principled stance, there are many, and that's why we are where we are today.
I think my mind initially goes to the American giants like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., even Ronald Reagan, true leaders in American history, but then I think that I'm more inclined though, Ken, to answer your question to that I think of people like John McCain, or even Mark Salter, I think of American soldiers and people who have fought and gave their lives for our country.
And that to me is the true meaning of leadership, especially in this era where you are willing to give something up in exchange for the greater good of this country.
At the end of the day, I don't really view this period of my life that I gave something up, I've gained a lot in return, I've gained my sense of character and dignity back, I've gained my sense of public service and leadership back, I've gained a whole new community of people who not only feel the same way and view this crisis the same way that I do, but are equally committed to overcoming through this period together.
And we can only get through this period if we go through it together.
So it takes people that are civic-minded, like Mark Salter, like you, like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, members of Congress who are equally committed to overcoming this right now, but it also takes the lives and the people of America to be able to see this issue for what it is.
And I think that it's anybody who is able to open their mind and their heart to a different point of view right now is heroic in my mind.
- I was gonna ask you as the last question, is it ever too late to do the right thing?
Of course we know what the answer is, you've answered it, you're the living example of that, it's never, ever, of course, too late.
But the tougher question might be, to end on is, you saw all the tantrums, you saw all of the inability to care about bipartisan stuff, you saw the insensitivity at Covid, I mean, Herman Kane died because of the lax things, and you knew him and you saw what happened on January 6th, and still it took you a long time to change.
And so the question has to be, it's of course never too late to change, how is it that we work to break the spell that this authoritarian has exerted on people of the former party of Abraham Lincoln, people like your parents.
How is it that your voice can help break that spell, to have people just say, "Oh my God, where was I?"
In a way that you did, the journey that you did is the journey that so many Americans have to make, and do it within the next 11 months, by the way, there's a kind of a ticking clock here.
How is it that we help Americans break the spell?
- I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I wish that I had a one size fits all answer, and I just can't come up with one, but the best answer I've been able to come up with, and it's probably not the right one, but we don't have, like you just said, we have about 11 months, we don't have time to have individual conversations with every single American.
And I think about Trump's base, the people who work for, first time voters who are with him now and likely will forever be with him, and we're not going, in these next 11 months, at least, we're not going to change their minds, which is unfortunate, maybe some of their minds will shift, and I hope that they would.
Then I think about there's a massive constituency of independent voters or republicans who identify with the Lincoln Party, who aren't fully aware of the dangers that we're facing as a nation.
And in my view, Donald Trump was elected in 2016 because of people like me, and I did have blind spots, and he was almost reelected in 2020, I think that we do a disservice to our fellow Americans when we say Joe Biden won by a landslide, in the popular vote, he certainly did, but not in the swing districts where the vote mattered.
So I think about having these conversations, I think about the rhetoric in 2016 through 2020, and even that has prevailed through today, and in my view, we need to change the tone of the conversations.
I think general Kelly, the president's former chief of staff, is a phenomenal American and public servant.
I do take issue with one thing he said several months ago, though, and he has spoken out several times, but he said something to the effect of, he spoke out, he doesn't understand why more minds haven't changed.
And I think about that and that used to be the view that I had, especially in the beginning of this journey for myself.
And it takes changing the tone of the conversation on a national level, we need to have educational conversations with people, we need to have conversations with people where they feel like they're being listened to, because I think that we so often talk at people and not talk with people, we can hear people, but we don't talk so people can listen.
And I think the more that people feel heard and the more that we can connect with them and not just talking points, I guess I do firmly believe that Donald Trump is an authoritarian leader, I think that he values authoritarian rule over a rule of law, and I think that if he is elected as the next president of the United States, we are one step closer to operating under a dictatorship.
That initially sounds like fear-mongering language, and I think that we need to be able to break that down and show people what that actually means and how their lives will forever be changed, and the trajectory and the fabric of our nation will forever be changed if that happens again.
So it's a combination of things, I think the media has a big part to play in it, but I also think there are voices that are extremely valuable like yours, like anybody who's willing to come forward and help educate the American people, not only on what we have overcome as a nation, also, that we are so delicate and that we aren't guaranteed.
And this isn't fear mongering language, this is a moment where we all need to come together and understand that it is a literal constitutional crisis, and fortunately in American history, we've gone through tough periods, but we have always prevailed, because better men have prevailed.
But right now, again, like I said earlier, we are living in this era of disinformation, and relies and conspiracy theories are being proliferated, and that's being taken in exchange for the truth.
And we need to be able to come back to a place where people can understand the truth and embrace the truth so they understand what their role is in this next election and how they're essential to upholding our constitution and our ideals.
- So in our film on the American Revolution, we're always dealing with the fact that this was a civil war, our civil war was a sectional war, north against south, promoted as a civil war, the brother against brother thing happened, but it wasn't the way it was in the revolution where families were torn apart.
And there's a distinction made between those who wish to remain the same, loyalists, and those that eventually call themselves patriots.
And there's a really interesting thing, and it's not easy, and it's not just black and white, one thing or the other, there's shades of gray as you know from your own experience in politics.
But I don't know of anybody that I've met in my life, with maybe the exception of John McCain recently, that fits to a t the definition of patriot, and we hope that you continue to stay in the Republican Party, that you try to return it to its roots, we hope that you run for office sometime.
I would urge everybody to read this extraordinary book, Enough, by Cassidy Hutchinson, it's been just a distinct pleasure to be able to talk with you and to hear your views.
It's refreshing, and it gives you hope that, as Lincoln said at the first inaugural, that "The better angels of our nature might actually come into play."
And we thank you one of our better angels for that.
- Thank you, Ken, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with your listeners.
It's been a pleasure, and I'm very fortunate to be able to meet with you, and hopefully we can meet in person soon.
- I would like that a lot.
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